


Signify

by sasha_b



Category: King Arthur (2004)
Genre: M/M, king arthur anniversary
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-07-10
Updated: 2014-07-10
Packaged: 2018-02-08 05:31:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,794
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1928454
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sasha_b/pseuds/sasha_b
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Arthur can't be happy for too long without Lancelot finding out.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Signify

**Author's Note:**

> This is a little rambling piece I wrote for fun and for the tenth anniversary of KA - I love slice of life stories, and I love scenes of Arthur and Lancelot in bed, and I love their snarking back and forth, and I love Arthur looking out the window at night. I love the idea of them not wearing armor, and I love the idea of Lancelot having come fresh from a bath or a swim, with his hair slicked back off his expressive face. I love Arthur worrying about his father's cross and doing right by Uther, and I love the idea of them drinking together and arguing and then being intimate and warm together. They are the only things that really make the other happy (although Arthur would beg to differ). I wanted to incorporate everything I love into this little piece, even though it's kind of the same story I tell all the time.
> 
> I love them. More anniversary stuff to come. Enjoy!

The fortress priest always called it _auspicious_ when the moon was visible in the sky during the day.

Arthur stood on the battlements, dusk coming, summer close to being over, the dust from horses and men moving and people walking and animals being lead through the gates almost overwhelming – he smiled and crossed his arms, his lightweight bracae and sandals allowing sand and grit to coat his skin, but he didn’t care.

He surveyed Camboglanna and smiled more broadly, though he kept his teeth hidden. Things had gone (he hoped God would forgive his words) damn right for the past few weeks, and he counted his blessings, for his knights were sated, the people that lived in the fortress were fed and mostly healthy, and the final shipment of grain for winter storage had come, almost completely weevil-less. No Woad incursions had happened recently, and the area north of the Wall was quiet. He couldn’t stand his own good fortune. He looked up at the moon that was barely visible as the sun set and raised his right arm to his heart, a salute the least he could offer God and Nature for his bounty.

“Arthur,” Jols' voice came from behind him, and Arthur turned to his right, the flags hanging from the parapet snapping with the warm air. “Dinner is ready.”

“You didn’t come all this way to tell me that, did you?” Arthur cocked an eyebrow and uncrossed his arms, resting his hands on his hips. All was right with the fortress and suddenly Jols became a mother hen. “Jols, while I appreciate your kindness, I’ll be down soon.” He stepped next to his squire and rested a hand on Jols’ shoulder. “Fussy thing.”

Jols flushed but kept a straight face. “I’m here to see to your well being, commander. The men wouldn’t like it if you fell sick under my watch.”

“But then we’d have someone to blame.”

Arthur managed to refrain from rolling his eyes, but Jols did not. “Lancelot,” the squire gritted, and slipped passed the knight, who’d mounted the stairs to the battlements two at a time, his hair wet and shoved back from his face, skin neatly shaved, clothing old and wrinkled but clean. Arthur’s eyebrows shot upward again – he murmured a thanks to Jols as the squire disappeared down the stairs with the sun.

“One day he will gut you like a fish, you know.”

Lancelot leaned his backside against the brick and allowed the hot summer breeze to lift his hair from its neat coils on his head. He smiled, too toothily for Arthur’s taste, and crossed one booted foot over the other. “You can’t kill what you can’t catch, Arthur. He is no warrior. Aside, I live to give him trouble. Got to have some fun around here.” He waggled his eyebrows and despite himself, Arthur laughed. He was in too good a mood to let Lancelot’s hassling of his squire ruin anything.

“I think you’ve had some fun today already,” Arthur canted his head toward Lancelot’s clean skin and clothing. “Did you deign to use the bathhouse?”

“That Roman atrocity? Absolutely not. The river is fine for me,” Lancelot’s face was horror itself. “It was quiet and far from here and that was what I wanted.” He shoved off the battlements and came close to Arthur, almost stepping on Arthur’s feet as he ostensibly moved to make room for the legionaries changing guard near the parapet, sweat and leather assailing Arthur’s nose as the soldiers passed in a noisy group. The moon that had only been slightly visible was bigger and brighter in the sky and Arthur did not allow Lancelot’s proximity to force him to move backward, despite the other man’s intense closeness. He pursed his lips and stood lightly on the balls of his sandal clad feet, his inane mood enough to make him not fear whatever … retribution? Action? his second was planning. Arthur had no idea if he’d done something, but most of the time, that didn’t matter to Lancelot.

The other man merely smiled brightly in the gloom as two large ravens flew over their heads, coming home to roost for the night. Their inky wings blotted out the rising moon for a moment, and for a moment Arthur shivered.

“Do I bother you?” Lancelot’s voice was a soft purr; he must have mistaken Arthur’s shiver for something else –

“We are in public,” Arthur warned, low and soft. His relationship with his lieutenant was complex at best, and insane at worst. He would not let them be seen out in the open like – although everyone had to know.

But he needed to protect Lancelot. He grabbed the other man’s arm and steered him toward the stairs, greeting a few of his officers as they passed him, most likely on the way to check on their men and set up the rest of the night patrol. Only one, Lucius Verus, stared at Lancelot openly, and with what Arthur could only assume was either hatred, or jealousy. Several officers had voiced their opinions – loudly – when Arthur had chosen Lancelot as his second, but he’d stood his ground, arguing for the other man’s battle logic, skill with weaponry, and knowledge of Sarmatian, British and Roman war tactics.

It had worked, but begrudgingly.

“You are wearing sandals,” Lancelot said suddenly, out of the blue as they approached the officers quarters, passing the tavern, where most of Arthur’s knights were sitting, waving at them as they passed. Arthur smiled perfunctorily and waved off Bors’ offer of drink in favor of jerking Lancelot away from the barmaids and wine that were surely waiting for him. Arthur’s mood was still good – he kept reminding himself that things were going their way, his way – but Lancelot’s behavior, and if Arthur admitted it, his looks and smell, were starting to sour Arthur’s stomach.  And to make him think of other things he might want besides being jovial.  And that made him frown. Lancelot's summer brown skin was warm to the touch and the muscles that rippled under his bicep were strong and ropey and Arthur swallowed.

“You are very intelligent,” he snapped back, mood really on the way to being broken. “It is hot. And summer. And I like to keep my feet cool when I can,” he added as Lancelot started to laugh. They arrived at Arthur’s door, and when Lancelot balked when Arthur entered, he turned and narrowed his gaze at the knight, whose face had miraculously transformed from flirtatious and amused to as deadly serious as Arthur ever saw him.

“Lancelot. Why don’t you come in, and we can discuss whatever it was you wanted to talk about on the battlements in here. With drink,” he waved back at the dinner Jols had set up, foodstuffs and wine ready for his consumption. “Come,” he said again, reaching for Lancelot’s arm.

“You cannot command me here,” Lancelot bit off, his body tight, a bow, a steel tipped arrow aimed at Arthur. “I am my own man, here.” He smirked, but it wasn’t pretty. “Things are going a bit too well for you, for us, hmm?  Here?”

Damn the man. “If you knew how I was feeling, why even ask?”

“Because it’s not like you to be so content for so many days in a row. I was beginning to worry.”

Arthur’s sigh was long and rough. “Just come inside, and we can eat. Alright? You can make fun of my optimism once we’ve had a drink.”

He held the door open and after a moment, Lancelot strode in after him, the torches in their sconces wavering with his passing. Arthur stared at them for a moment; he knew they’d move in deference to Lancelot in any event, wind or no.

*

Arthur leaned out his open window in the middle of the night, his bare stomach a bit chilled where it made contact with the sill. His feet – sans sandals that Lancelot had found so funny – were dry and warm, though, an uncommon occurrence in Britain, and he wiggled his toes, curling them on the stone floor, the warmth from the recently vacated bed and the tiny brazier in the corner keeping him comfortable.

Why was it he couldn’t stay happy? And why did Lancelot know it, and call him out on it?

He fingered the cross he normally wore around his neck; the leather strap was old and almost worn through in certain places and he worried he might lose it in battle or just walking around the fortress. He’d see that Jols found him a suitable new cord in the morning.

_”Gratias tibi, Uther,”_ he murmured and smiled slightly at the coarse voice that called him back to the bed. He turned and twisted his lips wryly, canting his head one more time to look at the moon, now full and shining in the sky, white and gorgeous and he didn’t care if it was a portend. He would try and remain happy as long as he was able – no matter if the grain showed up rotten or Woads attacked every day or it rained for the next three months straight.

Damn Lancelot, but he was tired of the other man always getting him _right._ He’d prove Lancelot wrong, and he’d laugh in Lancelot’s face, and then the world might explode from the wrongness of that happening. Arthur shook his head and laughed, staring at the moon.

“I see you,” he murmured to its smooth face. “And I know you see me.”

“What?”

“For once, I am not speaking to your every whim,” Arthur closed his window most of the way and let go of the thong that held his cross, letting the iron pendant rest against his chest, the metal jewelry covering the beginning of a large scar he still had dreams about receiving. “Go to sleep.”

Crawling into the bed next to Lancelot, who was sprawled indolently as only he could across most of Arthur’s mattress, Arthur tucked his feet under the furs and lay back against his pillows, the cross sliding into his left armpit with his motion. He looked down when Lancelot’s hand wrapped around it and pulled him closer.

The cord snapped.

Lancelot’s expression – Arthur didn’t know whether to laugh or cry.

Setting the pendant down gently on a table that held a few scrolls and Arthur’s oil lamp, Lancelot turned back to face him and cocked one brow – something he was all too good at. “What is it your priests always say about seeing the moon during the day and portends?”

“Shut up, Lancelot,” Arthur said, with conviction and a finality he felt to his marrow.

Lancelot’s answering smile was dazzling and annoying as anything Arthur had ever seen.

**Author's Note:**

> Arthur's ramblings at the moon inspired by Jim Brickman's children's song.


End file.
